Since everyone else is doing it.

If you've read my wife's blog you know that we've been fortunate enough to spend Thanksgiving out in Idaho with family and friends. My job ended up starting a month earlier than originally planned which is great except we already had plans to come out to Idaho at the end of November. Well the timing worked out perfectly, I went to training for 3 weeks in Dallas and my company flew me from there to Boise and gave me a few days off since I'd just spent so much time away. I owe many thanks to my employer and the two other pilots that I work with for making this whole trip happen as smoothly as it did. Tomorrow I fly home to Naples and Manda and the boys will come back on Friday.

It turned out to be a great trip. We stayed with Becky & Steve (my Aunt & Uncle) and their 5 kids over the holidays. I know it must have been a strain on them to have 4 more people living in their house but they were great hosts and our boys absolutely loved playing with their cousins.

Vance with his cousin Kaden

Jesse & Kaden have all kinds of Thomas the train toys which Joel is obsessed with and there were plenty of people ogling over Vance which makes him quite happy. The adults spent a lot of time playing the Wii, card games, and 'Scene it - Seinfeld'. It was a great time. As an added bonus I found several high school buddies that are back living in the area and we were able to hang out and catch up (unfortunately this meant digging up old stories that scared Manda :)

Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without overeating and Joel got his first experience. He was eating ALL day on Thanksgiving. His Aunt Jenni brought these pumpkin cookies that were really good and he was eating them non stop. Then his new favorite Uncle Steve would put whipped cream all over the top of the cookies which he thought was amazing (until he discovered you could just spray the whipped cream right down your throat and skip a whole step). We didn't realize it but the plate of cookies (by plate I mean tray that would feed an entire ward) was left unattended and the kids were pounding them by the armful. It was all good and well until 02:00 in the morning when all of those cookies started coming up. Which, if you haven't experienced it, is fantastic when you're staying at someone else's house and your kid is barfing over all of their stuff. After a bath and a load of laundry in the middle of the night Joel felt great and went right back to bed. I did not get another wink as every sound he made from then on had me worried that things were going south again. Oh well another lesson learned: You should probably regulate the amount of cookies that your child eats, even on the day of obesity. Although, the image of Joel running around to people with his mouth open like a little birdie hoping they'd spray whipped cream directly into his mouth almost made it worth the clean up (not quite though).

Even though Joel didn't eat any more pumpkin cookies (neither did I for that matter) they had a blast doing the following:

For the moms out there, we weren't riding without helmets we're just posing for the picture ;)

Steve giving Joel a ride on his small motorcycle


Vance watching his brother on the motorcycle

Joel and me, you can't really call it a trip to Idaho without shooting something

Joel was very happy that we found some time for swimming



Vance thought it was great until the engine was started, that was enough

We had the most family at a holiday get-together that we've had in many years and it was great getting to see everyone. I even went to the BSU v. Fresno State game with my Dad and my cousin Kandice which was great. We got some good pictures but Dad has them so I'll have to wait to post them.

In all seriousness we are very grateful for our families this year. Both my parents and my in-laws have been very supportive and helpful during a strange year for us and everything ended up in good shape because of them.

Bring on Christmas....